Polling Quick Hits:
California:
The Golden state falls into the refine category. The new Field poll does little to dissuade FHQ -- or anyone else for that matter -- that California is anything other than comfortably in Obama's column. The weighted average has stretched just a touch since August as the president's shares of support in the California polls conducted in that time have consistently had the president in the upper 50s range while Romney has more or less remained stationary in the low to mid-30s.

Colorado:
While Colorado and Virginia had been hand-in-glove together for much of the year, there is seemingly a trend at work that has the two separating some. Both are toss ups favoring Obama, but Virginia is moving toward the president and Colorado is tightening some. In the averages, that has brought Colorado down to about two and a half points separating Obama and Romney, but the post-convention polling is littered with one and two point advantages for both candidates. The latest Q-poll fits that bill.

Florida:
FHQ keeps saying that the Sunshine state is the smallest of leans to Obama. It is, but the president and Mitt Romney are essentially tied there. The average has been in Obama's favor and under one percentage point for quite a while now. Florida remains the most likely state to jump the partisan line into the opposing candidate's -- Romney's in this case -- list of states. Most troubling of all from the Romney perspective is that while things are close in Florida, Obama is drifting ever closer to the 50% mark in the polling there with Romney's share keeping pace -- albeit slightly behind -- in most cases, but not all.

Maine:
Up in Maine, the two new surveys released give us a refining picture of how the presidential race looks. Not surprisingly, Obama is ahead by a margin that makes the Pine Tree state a strong Obama state. Of course, Maine is one of two states to allocate electoral college votes by congressional district, so there is some potential that Romney could take one electoral vote -- as Obama did in Nebraska in 2008 -- but that isn't likely. The margin is in lean territory in the second district in the MPRC poll, but that is just one snapshot and there doesn't seem to be any effort on the part of the Romney camp to focus any resources there.

Massachusetts:
Well, Massachusetts is still Massachusetts: still solidly blue. But this survey -- like those yesterday -- confirms the state of the race in the state in which Mitt Romney once served as governor.

Michigan:
The temptation is still to put a lot of stock in the Democrats' focus on the auto bailout in Charlotte as a reason for some post-convention surges in states with a heavy auto industry presence. Whether that is the case is beside the point. The margins in the post-convention polling of the Great Lakes state have continued to show a widening lead there. And though that has not translated to the averages in the same way, that gap instead of closing by the smallest of amounts is not stretching out some in favor of the president.

New Hampshire:
The lone bright spot for Romney in the list of polls for today is in the Granite state. Rasmussen shows a small lead (+3) for Romney and consequentially, that moves the FHQ weighted average in New Hampshire down below the four point barrier. That has created some separation between New Hampshire and the other three states it has been clustered around in the averages dating back to August (Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin). Now New Hampshire is in a group with the next two states on the list below.

Ohio:
If Massachusetts is still Massachusetts, then Ohio is still Ohio. Typically that would mean that the Buckeye state is a toss up (It is.), but in addition to that in 2012, the state also has resisted the uniform shift that would otherwise be expected to hit every state equally. Where Missouri, for example, has shifted back toward the Republicans in 2012 relative to 2008, Ohio has not. It still sits around the three point range in the direction of the president in the averages. But it should be mentioned that the FOX poll today shows a margin about double the FHQ average; in line with a Virginia or Michigan-type post-convention move toward the president.

Virginia:
As has been touched on in a couple of places above -- and was yesterday -- the polling two weeks after convention season came to a close appears to be breaking in some of the toss up states toward the president. Virginia is one of those states. And while that trend has been echoed to some extent in the national polls, it seems to be stronger on the state level. The gap in Virginia, once mired at about +2 for Obama, has suddenly begun widening, pushing the average above three points and past Colorado. Also noteworthy is that the president's share in several of these Virginia polls has pushed north of the 50% mark. The polls may or may not continue to fluctuate, but if they do, it would be to the former Massachusetts governor's advantage to see Obama under 50% in Virginia polling. Without Virginia, Romney's routes to 270 are quite limited.

Wisconsin:

Changes (September 19)

State

Before

After

Wisconsin

Toss Up Obama

Lean Obama

FHQ is actually glad that Wisconsin jumped into -- or back into -- the Lean Obama category before we made the switch to the 4% mark and below became the new toss up category. That it will already be a lean -- if the polling holds up -- means that FHQ won't be susceptible to the "you're favoring Obama with this switch" charge. Again, that switch when it occurs -- before the debates -- is about reflecting the reality that it is tougher for either candidate to reverse the course or fully erase a defined and persistent deficit given the time remaining in the campaign. As an aside, +14 for Obama seems a bit high in Wisconsin. This is just statistical noise most likely, but it should be noted that the Marquette poll has had a good track record for Wisconsin races all year.

For once, the newly added polling data changes up the FHQ graphics. Wisconsin's shift into the Lean Obama category brings both candidates' respective lean totals to 54 electoral votes. In moving, Wisconsin flipped positions with Michigan on the Spectrum. While New Hampshire drew closer to the Ohio and Virginia, that New Hampshire through North Carolina group of toss ups has held steady. The only move recently in that group has been the Colorado/Virginia switch, the trajectory of which was alluded to above. Elsewhere, California and Maine jumped one spot each closer to the Obama end of the Spectrum.

All of this paints a picture of a decidedly constrained number of toss up states. Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin -- given recent polling -- look like reaches for Romney and that means that the battle is over that range of states described above. The seven states in the middle column from New Hampshire through North Carolina are where the action is most likely to be down the stretch in this campaign. That Romney is still being required to expend resources in North Carolina -- a state that assuming a uniform shift since 2008 "should" have shifted much more toward the Republican candidate -- is evidence of just how steep the climb is for the former Massachusetts governo. Those are resources that could be better used in other toss up states that could put Obama on the defensive. As it stands now Obama is basically back in a prevent defense for the final period. That is, perhaps, an oversimplified view of the landscape but it is indicative of the ground the Romney campaign has to make up.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

The list of states hovering around the FHQ category cutpoints remains the same today with one exception. Wisconsin is still very much on the Lean/Toss Up Obama line, but is now on the lean side of the line instead. More importantly, if the 4% threshold was being used today to delineate the toss up and lean categories, Wisconsin would no longer be on the Watch List. The Badger state would instead be a more comfortable lean state for the president.

Also, New Hampshire, on the strength of the Rasmussen poll showing Romney slightly ahead dips below the 4% threshold and thus, comes off the Watch List.

The Watch List1

State

Switch

Connecticut

from Lean Obama

to Strong Obama

Florida

from Toss Up Obama

to Toss Up Romney

Michigan

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

Minnesota

from Lean Obama

to Strong Obama

Nevada

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

New Mexico

from Strong Obama

to Lean Obama

Wisconsin

from Lean Obama

to Toss Up Obama

1 The Watch list shows those states in the FHQ Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories. The List is not a trend analysis. It indicates which states are straddling the line between categories and which states are most likely to shift given the introduction of new polling data. Michigan, for example, is close to being a Lean Obama state, but the trajectory of the polling there has been moving the state away from that lean distinction.